The growth on my bottom eyelid had been causing me increasing trouble over the past weeks and months. Recently it the growth had become quite sensitive to the touch and contemplated seeking help at a hospital or skin care clinic.
Fortunately I first sought help on the Internet and it was quick and easy to find. The best suggestion concerned the use of a compress made by adding grains of rice to a sock, tying it off and heating it in the microwave for about 30 seconds. The compress is then applied to the eye. I did this several times over a couple of days and miraculously the growth shrivelled and disappeared.
I shudder to think what might have happened to me had I sought "medical help" (those two words are almost an oxymoron nowadays). The experience was a valuable one in that it reminded me to attempt to heal myself first.
Although it's been several weeks now since I've imbibed coffee, I decided today to indulge in a cup again in an effort to reestablish a more regular sleep pattern. For some time now I've fallen into the habit of sleeping for about four hours during the day and another four hours at night. The two periods are widely separated.
The problem has become more acute of late as I seemed to be sleeping far more than I should be. I woke up today about 1am and normally I would have slept or still be sleeping now at 2pm. Instead I decided to drink a cup of coffee in an effort to stimulate myself to stay awake until after dark. By the time the caffeine wears off, it will hopefully be around 7pm to 8pm and I can sleep for eight or so hours and get up around 3pm to 4pm.
Balzac's work habits were legendary. He wrote from 1 am to 8 am every morning and sometimes even longer. Balzac could write very rapidly; some of his novels, written with a quill, were composed at a pace equal to thirty words per minute on a modern typewriter. His preferred method was to eat a light meal at five or six in the afternoon, then sleep until midnight. He then rose and wrote for many hours, fueled by innumerable cups of black coffee. He often worked for fifteen hours or more at a stretch; he claimed to have once worked for 48 hours with only three hours of rest in the middle. Source.
That's the plan anyway. I can only wait and see what happens. So far the caffeine is kicking in and I'm feeling "stimulated". I'm ready to write that novel that everyone has inside of them. I can understand what propelled Balzac, an inveterate coffee addict, to write as prodigiously as he did. The danger is that I'll revert to my previous addiction, a problem with every addict. While I'm tempted to indulge in an early morning cup of coffee on a regular basis, I certainly won't go back to drinking tea for the remainder of the day as I used to do. I'll stick to water.
Health-wise I seem to be OK but I find myself thinking that every twinge or pang is the harbinger of my demise. It's remarkable that my body has held up for this long (almost 74 years). I was watching a video of a young woman living in a van who a couple of years before suffered some health crisis that required the removal of her entire large intestine. She needs to use a colostomy bag for the rest of her life. It made me realise how fortunate I was to have enjoyed good health for so long. My only health crisis occurred in late July of 2016 when I needed to have my gall bladder removed. Hopefully my next health crisis will be far off and will be my last.
After feeling quite fit and healthy following my caffeine abstinence, I embarked on some reasonably intensive physical activities around the house over a couple of days. I soon payed the price and I've been feeling poorly for a couple of days now. The discomfort in my chest has returned and my energy levels are low.
I can plead guilty to most of the above. I could see that cleaning needed to be done and I determined to do it but at what cost? It's disconcerting to find myself physically challenged by activities that a few years ago I would have completed with ease. Any intense activity involving the upper body will quickly lead to chest discomfort.
Abstaining from all upper body physical exertion however, is likely to lead to an acceleration of the inevitable age-related sarcopenia. While I need to be physically active and must remember not to overdo it.
It's been more than a couple of weeks now then I quit caffeine and I can say that I haven't felt this good in a long time. I'm sleeping better, my head is clearer and I have more energy. With our maid gone, I'm finding that just doing chores around the house is sufficient exercise for me. Fortunately, our house has many steps and this is what makes the difference. I'm not roaming around on the one level but constanty climbing or descending.
It was only a couple of days ago that I resumed my leg exercises after a break of a couple of months. I want to continue these. It was last night that I resumed my faux sit-ups but paid the price today with discomfort in my solar plexus area. Prior to this I'd been feeling very little discomfort. I'm debating whether to continue these or not. As usual I launched into the faux sit-ups at my pre-break levels, ignoring common sense that would have warned too much too quickly.
Normally I weigh myself before breakfast but today, even after eating a breakfast of two pieces of toast and two cups of water, I weighed just 72.5 kg which I'm happy about. Overall though, the increased feeling of well-being is more than adequate compensation for foregoing the stimulation of caffeine via tea and coffee. The world may still run on coffee but not my world. I'm finally free of it.
It was on August 24th that felt unwell after having breakfast of avocado on toast with a cup of coffee. The symptoms that followed over that day and the next two were identical to those that I'd suffered some months before when I suddenly stopped my consumption of caffeine: aching hip joints, general malaise and acute brain fog.
I can only assume that my symptoms this time were also a product of caffeine withdrawal. Despite giving up caffeine, I had slowly returned to my old ways and by the time of the morning in question I was really back to where I'd started. My body is telling me quite firmly to give caffeine up again and this time forever.
It's unfortunate but, like alcohol, I know that as my body ages it becomes more sensitive to toxins that I was able to tolerate in my youth and it's saying it can't cope with caffeine anymore. I need to listen. I've also stopped drinking the goat's milk that I was prescribed. I don't think that was helping me either.
So now, instead of tea and coffee, it's just clear water and, fortunately here in Indonesia, it's not fluoridated. My weight is back down in 72.8 kg which is good and hopefully I can shed a couple of more kilograms. I still get fatigued easily and there's no denying that I'm not the man I once was but all I can do is carry on.
After six weeks of holidays, I've eventually returned home and my weight was disappointing but not surprising. In shorts only, I weighed 74.5 kg. I say not surprising because I did very little exercise, even neglecting my leg strengthening exercises with the stretch band. I'm basically back to zero so anything I do from this point on will be of benefit.
Just before heading back home, I had the opportunity to have a brief session with my psychic healer who said that my lungs and heart were not in synch, meaning that my rate of breathing and my heart rate were out of synch. He recommended that I consume three sachets of SuperGoat per day. I was somewhat surprised at this prescription, after all drinking goat's milk sweetened with palm sugar isn't exactly my style. See Figure 1.
However, I have faith in his healing and have been dutifully consuming my three sachets daily for some days now. I can say that I've noticed some definite improvement in my condition since beginning the regime and I'm motivated to continue. My condition, as I've diagnosed it, is a thymoma or thymic cyst but my healer made no mention of kelanjar or gland this time as he'd done on a previous occasion.
Figure 1
Meanwhile I need to get my body back into some kind of shape, slowly of course. The goat's milk has provided me with a little more energy to embark on this enterprise. Before I was feeling too lethargic to even begin. At this point in my life, the goal is to simply hold on. Sooner or later, something will carry me off but hopefully it will be quick and, in the interim, I would like to maintain an acceptable level of physical health and cognitive functioning.
Oh dear, it's June 13th and I'm still a little above or a little below 74 kg. There's been no substantial change in over two weeks. I've been diligent in my walking by going for a 30 minute brisk walk each day while trying to avoid snacking between meals. I stopped entering the weights in the spreadsheet because clearly the average was around 74 kg. I would still like to get down to 72 kg but clearly it will be a gradual and lengthy process.
The key is to increase the amount of exercise that I do while eating normally. Apart from the daily walk, I'm largely sedentary. Fortunately, the house that I'm living in has lots of stairs so there's energy spent there just moving around inside. The opportunity for step-up exercises is thus ubiquitous and I really should make more use of this. Every minute of every day is an opportunity to exercise and by exercise I mean something as simple of neck rotations to ward off the ravages of calcification as I age.
Tonight, back in Jakarta, I weighed in at 75.2 kg, wearing shorts. On the 12th May, in Bali, I weighed in at 75.8 kg and two days later at 74.6 kg. That was only a week ago so it’s not surprising that there hasn’t been much change. I caught a cold during my last couple of days in Bali and I’ve only just shaken it off. I was not feeling well at all. Today was the first day I went for a serious walk.
Clearly, if I’m to lose this weight, I need to walk on a daily basis and measure my weight at a fixed time each day. Probably just before breakfast. I’ve created a worksheet in Google Sheets to track my progress. I need this sort of incentive if I’m going to achieve my goal, which is to come in at under 72 kg.
Currently the second column in empty because I plan to begin my record taking tomorrow morning. The weight need only be gradual. Given that I’m around 75 kg at the moment, I have 3 kg to lose. If I were to lose weight at the rate of 0.1 kg per day, then it would take 30 days approximately to reach my goal. This is a realistic time frame I think. By the 22nd June, I will hopefully dip under 72 kg.
Oh dear. The hotel room in which I'm staying has a set of scales and for the first time in weeks I stepped onto them. Butt naked, I came in at a shocking 75.8 kg, the most I've weighed since my precipitous weight loss in the second half of 2015. Figure 1 does not show my feet, nor the transparent glass scales on which I stood, but it serves as a visual reminder of my slide toward obesity.
Figure 1
How did it come to this? Well, two weeks in Bali marked a decisive break from my normal routine at home. Meals become irregular and there's a tendency to eat more than one should. I have been walking but clearly not enough. The time has come of course to embrace some dietary discipline, reverse the weight gain and head back toward an ideal weight of between 71 kg. and 72 kg.
As for my thymoma, I've discovered in the process of palpation that I have a small area of my sternum that is sensitive to pressure. I hadn't noticed this before. There is a general feeling of discomfort when I move about while lying down but it's hardly debilitating. I've did bring my "elastic band" for leg exercises but haven't used it much at all. Whenever I have lengthy lapses like this, I find that the affected muscles lose their tone quite quickly and it takes some time to bring them back to full strength. The moral is to not allow such lapses. However, sometimes I feel quite weary and use that as an excuse.
My eyes have been giving some trouble and there is a growth on my left eye that is somewhat annoying. It's benign and has been around for a while but has slowly increased in size over the years. See Figure 2.
Figure 2
It shouldn't be too big a deal to have it removed, by laser surgery I would suppose. It's disturbing to see how far my eyes have sunk into their sockets, the inevitable consequences of old age. Along with diminishing eyesight, my mental acuity seems to be in decline although its hard to quantify to what degree. I try to keep mentally active.
There's nowhere to hide with a thymoma inside you. Yes, I'm back with another of my infrequent posts to this blog. I try to avoid thinking about my inner companion, hoping that it will just go away or at least stop growing. But growing it is and the pressure on my inner organs is being felt. Figure 1 shows an image from Wikipedia of a typical thymoma.
Figure 1
I hasten to add that this is my own diagnosis but there's not anything else that it could be really. The Wikipedia article adds that:
A third of all people with a thymoma have symptoms caused by compression of the surrounding organs by an expansive mass ... Once diagnosed, thymomas may be removed surgically.
There are various stages described by the Masaoka Staging System:
I: Completely encapsulated
IIA: Microscopic invasion through the capsule into surrounding fatty tissue
IIB: Macroscopic invasion into capsule
III: Macroscopic invasion into adjacent organs
IVA: Pleural or pericardial implants
IVB: Lymphogenous or hematogenous metastasis to distant (extrathoracic) sites
One hopes of course that the thymoma is completely encapsulated. I can't really ignore the reality anymore as it's starting to effect my daily functioning. Sneezes really hurt and I have to careful when I move about not to induce discomfort. Deep breathing is also met with discomfort. I need to seek medical help sooner rather than later.
Figure 2 shows how large these thymomas can grow:
Figure 2
My thymoma is a little on the right side of my sternum as shown in Figure 3 (marked with a red circle).
One of the downsides of getting old is that various "barnacles of old age" appear on ones skin. These are technically known as seborrheic keratoses (see Figure 1) and are described as follows:
A benign skin disorder due to excessive growth of the top layer of skin cells, usually found in persons over 30 years old. They may appear as just one growth or in clusters. They are most often brown but can differ in colour and range anywhere from light tan to black. They come in different sizes, anywhere from a fraction of an inch (or centimetre) to an inch (2.5 cm) in diameter.
The telltale feature of seborrheic keratoses is that they look like they have been pasted on the skin or just stuck on it. They may look like a dab of warm brown candle wax that dropped on the skin. Almost everybody eventually develops at least a few seborrheic keratoses since they tend to become more common and more numerous with age. They are sometimes referred to as "barnacles of old age."
Seborrheic keratoses are most often found on the chest or back but can be found on the scalp, face, or neck or almost anywhere on the body. When they first appear, the growths usually begin one at a time as small rough bumps. Eventually they thicken and develop a rough, warty surface. Although seborrheic keratoses may first appear in one spot and seem to spread to another, they are not catching. As people age they may simply develop a few more. These growths may be unsightly, especially if they begin to appear on the face. Source.
What works for me are body scrubs, especially the one shown in Figure 2, that when applied daily keep the growths in check, without entirely removing them.
Figure 2
I'm more than happy with the results but one must remember that not all body scrubs are equal. The ones that work for me have palpable grains of sand (I'm supposing) embedded in the paste and it is these grains that provide the abrasion that controls the growth of the "barnacles". It is a gentle process but applied on a daily basis it works just fine.
Yesterday morning I tested out my mini-trampoline for about half an hour. I was basically just stepping up and down on it, and certainly not bouncing. The exercise seemed innocuous enough. However, I seem to have paid a price. Yesterday evening, I skipped my evening meal because my appetite was gone. During the night I felt somewhat nauseous and didn't even feel like breakfast this morning, although I did eat some toast later.
I think what happened was that the continuous up and down motion aggravated my thymoma. The motion of stepping up and down on the trampoline is quite different to that of walking. It would seem that my thymoma, probably an encapsulated cyst-like object located directly above my stomach, was bobbing about and pushing and pulling against things in a more extreme fashion than normal.
Despite my exercise routine being slow and sedate, it was enough to cause me serious concern. My reaction emphasises how fragile my body has become and how cautious I need to be when beginning any new exercises. My chest still feels sensitive and I have a general malaise.
Scandalous Scales: it came as something of a shock to find that I weighed in at 74.3 kg, wearing T-shirt and shorts on the evening of Sunday, February 13th 2022. As I said in a previous post, it's probably best to weigh myself of a morning. I went to the bathroom, stripped-off and weighed myself again. This time I was 73.5 kg which is still disturbingly high.
For the past week or more, my exercise routine has been disrupted but things have now returned to normal. Today I resumed my morning walk and tomorrow I plan to spend some time on the mini-trampoline as well as practising some shuffle moves, as outlined in my previous post titled The Septuagenarian Shuffle. I'm determined to get my weight back down to about 71 kg. At the moment, I'm heavier than I've been since heading to Australia in July of 2015.
Chilly Winds: recently the family visited the mountains at the back of Jakarta and the temperature in the evening was around 13°C, drastically lower than the balmy temperatures in the lowlands from where I had just come. There was also a light drizzle and gusts of wind that added to my discomfort. We were staying in one of the chalets that were dotted around the resort and separate from the main building where we had just finished dining.
As we headed out into the freezing weather toward our accommodation, a particularly nasty gust of wind cut right through me and a wave of nausea swept over me. My legs almost buckled and I needed assistance to get to our accommodation. When I did arrive I was shaking uncontrollably and went straight to bed where my condition slowly stabilised. For me, this was an unprecedented and fairly shocking event.
I can't help feeling that the reaction was the result of my thymoma not responding well to the sudden drop in temperature that my body had experienced because of the wind blast. This then affected the surrounding organs and destabilised the mechanism that controls my body's core temperature. The lesson learned is that I need to wear proper clothing before exposing myself to cold temperatures, especially where a wind chill factor is involved.
I'm now back in the tropics at sea level and all is well. There's no doubt my thymoma has grown but, whether it's self-limiting or becomes more invasive, only time will tell. As I approach my 73rd birthday, I'm certainly not the man I once was. I'm diminished in many ways but I'm still breathing and ostensibly still healthy and active. However, I need to remain aware of my vulnerability and not impose unnecessary stress on my body.
A meaning of shuffle as a verb is to walk by dragging one's feet along or without lifting them fully from the ground. That's kind of what I've been lately as a form of exercise and, given that I'm almost 73 years of age, the term septuagenarian shuffle seems appropriate.
Why am I doing this? Well, sometimes the weather outside is too hot or it's raining and even if I do go for a walk, the environment through which I'm walking is none too salubrious. My alternative solution has been to put on my wireless earbuds and listen to music while shuffling about inside the house. The first tried it for 30 minutes and this morning I managed 45 minutes.
Of course there's plenty of shuffle music out there that one can shuffle to but it's a little too energetic for someone of my age. I just listen to one of YouTube Music playlists and today I was listening to a playlist that I'd compiled in July of 2019, consisting mainly of fairly sedate songs.
It's not that I couldn't work my up to incorporating some shuffle moves, there are plenty of tutorials on how to master the moves. The following video tutorial has attracted over 16 million views since it was first put up in January of 2017.
The key point is that exercise needs to be simple and executable at any time or place. It shouldn't require specialised equipment. The shuffle is ideal in this regard. It's better when done to music but that's not absolutely necessary. Although I've started out with a slow shuffle of 30 to 45 minutes, there's no reason not to try faster movements that are the length of just a single song like the a-ha video above.
Here is a video of a 70 year old dancing with his granddaughter.
The story accompanying the video is as follows:
Shuffle dancing is becoming a very popular trend across China. The dance originally started in Australia back in the 1980s. Named “The Melbourne Shuffle”, the dance is becoming a modern type of square dance and is turning out to be a popular exercise/weight loss routine for many elderly and middle-age people in China.
Not only is this dance a brilliant form of exercise, but it’s also bringing people of different generations together. Videos have been popping up on social media platforms including TikTok (mainly a younger user base) sharing videos of themselves shuffle dancing with their parents and even grandparents – many of which have gone viral.
This meagre tally for Staying Healthy is odd since I spend a lot of time thinking about "staying healthy". I was shocked a few days ago when I climbed on the electronic scales and found my weight to be a hefty 73.3 kg. This morning however, I weighed myself and came in at 72.4 kg. It might be best to weigh myself at the same time each day: just after arising and before consuming breakfast. I don't want to regain the weight that I was before retiring, which was in excess of 77 kg and sometimes nearing 80 kg. I'm happy to be a little about 70 kg.
For this morning's weigh in, the result from this source indicates:
Height: 178 cm
Weight: 72.4 kg
BMI:22.9
This indicates your weight is in the normal category for adults of your height. For your height, a normal weight range would be from 58.6 kg ≡ BMI of 18.5 to 78.9 kilograms ≡ BMI of 24.9.
In the bad old (working) days, I was thus nudging this upper limit of 24.9 but soon after retiring my weight plummeted to a little above 63 kg at its lowest. Even this was far too thin and at 58.6 kg, with a BMI of 18.5, I would have looked skeletal. A weight of around 72 kg is ideal for me.
My resting pulse rate is a little above 60, usually 61-62, which seems fine. I haven't had my blood pressure measured for a while but that's never been a cause for concern. Figure 1 shows where I stand in the heart beats per minute game:
Exercise-wise I go for a brisk 20 minute walk with my granddaughter most mornings. I complete a sequence of 4 x 40 repetitions of leg exercises with my "elastic" band (which is actually just a piece of pantyhose that continues to stand the test of time). My reasoning is that it's important to keep the base strong in order to support the rest of the "structure".
Most days I also do around 300 partial sit-ups in which I lie on my back and attempt to sit up but don't actually go through with the manoeuvre, instead I just tense (and thus strengthen) my abdominal muscles. I sometimes do a set of 10 full squats but I've been neglecting this of late. I certainly do a lot of neck stretching and rotations in an attempt to maintain flexibility against the encroachments of ossification.
My thymoma, now of three years duration, doesn't cause me too much bother. I'm back to drinking a cup of coffee in the morning and sometimes another cup if I go out during the day. I don't drink tea at all now. I'm careful not to put too much stress on my upper body for fear of exacerbating the discomfort in my sternum. My granddaughter has been doing some psychic healing of the area and this has proven very effective.
Hopefully I will post more frequently to this blog during the coming year.
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